.T7 
University Bulletin. Series 6, No. 19 



Educational Values 

of 

Courses in Agriculture 



An Address 



on the 



Educational Values of 

Courses in Agriculture 



by 



A. C. True, Ph. D. 

Director of the office of Experiment Stations of the U. S. 

Department of Agriculture and Dean of the Graduate 

School of Agriculture. 



with an introduction by 

W. O. Thompson, D. D., LL. D. 

President of the Ohio State University 
Columbus. 



Published by the University. 



Kuteied at the Fostoflfice, Columbus, Ohio, as second class rnatler. 



Introduction 



The wider range of studies characteristic of modern education has 
grown out of the fact that new subjects have proved themselves to have a 
utility similar to that contained in the older curriculum in realizing the aims 
and results of education. The conclusion that education should embrace man's 
relation to all forms of human activitA' has been accepted. The technical 
and industrial have as clear a title to a place in anj' complete system of 
education as the literary or the professional. The paper read by Dr. True 
before the Graduate Summer School of Agriculture is an effort to set forth 
the claim of Agricultural courses to a place in our educational system and to 
justify their educational value. It is worth while to call attention to the 
popular misconception of these courses which amounts to a prejudice 
against them. The paper will, upon a careful reading, clear away many 
errors and give a clearer view of the current work in agricultural science. 
If the current opinion that natiire study is a valuable element in the edu- 
cation of our children be accepted the conclusion that a wider study of 
nature through the avenue of the natural sciences would be increasingly 
helpful can not easily be resisted. The utter loneliness of a large propor- 
tion of our population in the presence of the Creator's universe of life and 
thought relations is a sufficient evidence of ignorance to warrant an attempt 
at its removal. Agricultural education aims to bring the student into intel- 
ligent and sympathetic cooperation with the world in which he must live 
and labor. Moreover this broader sympathy cultivated is not without its 
value in other than agricultural lines. An examination into the content 
of an agricultural course will reveal the fact that its students would be a 
decided acquisition to many of our .secondary schools as teachers by reason of 
their training. In the interest of truth it may be well to note that an agricul- 
tural course as laid down in our colleges is no more exclusively of agricul- 
ture than the so-called philosophical courses are of philosophy. 

Assuming that the end of education is to prepare men to live, it is 
proper to consider whether the subjects that directly engage a large pro- 
portion of our people and deeply affect many more ought not to have a 
place in our courses of study and competent teachers to present them. 
Dr. True's paper is a clear presentation of the claims of agricultural science 
and is worthy of a thoughtful reading b}- teachers. 

W. O. Thompson. 



Address 



By Dr. A. C. True. 

In order to estimate correctly the educational values involved in instruc- 
tion in the theory and practice of agriculture, we must first determine the 
standards by which these values are to be measured and then inquire how 
far they are affected by methods of instruction. It will also be necessary 
to consider the aims of such instruction and the relative place of agriculture 
in the curriculum. 

According to Pres. Eliot of Harvard University there are six essential 
constituents of all worthy education — "constituents which make part of the 
educational process from first to last, in every 3-ear and in every stage." 

"The first constituent is the careful training of the organs of sense, 
through which we get incessant and infinitely diversified communications 
with the external world, including in that phrase the whole inanimate and 
animate creation with all human monuments and records. Through the 
gate of accurate observation come all kinds of knowledge and experience. 
The little child must learn to see with precision the forms and letters, to 
hear exactly the sounds of words and phrases, and by touch to discriminate 
between wet and dry, hot and cold, smooth and rough. The organs of 
sense are not for scientific uses chiefly: all ordinary knowledge for practical 
purposes conies through them, and language too, with all which language 
implies and renders possible. Then comes practice in grouping and com- 
paring different sensations or contacts, and in drawing inferences from such 
comparisons — practice which is indispensable in every field of knowledge. 
Next comes training in making a record of the observation, the comparison, 
or the grouping. This period may obviously be made either in the memory 
or in written form, but practice in making accurate records there must be 

5 



in all effective education. Foiirthl}- comes training of the memory, or, in 
other words, practice in holding in the mind the records of observations, 
groupings, and comparisons. Fifthly comes training in the power of ex- 
pression — in clear, concise exposition, and in argument, or the logical set- 
ting forth of a process of reasoning. This training in the logical develop- 
ment of a reasoning process is almost the consummation of education; but 
there is one other essential constituent, namely, the steady inculcation of 
those supreme ideals through which the human race is uplifted and en- 
nobled — the ideals of beauty, honor, duty and love. 

These six I believe to be essential constituents of education in the high- 
est sense: we nmst learn to see straight and clear; to compare and infer; to 
make an accurate record; to remember; to express our thought with precis- 
ion; and to hold fast on lofty ideals." 

"There is also," he says, "general recognition of the principle that effect- 
ive pozver in action is the true end of education rather than the storing up 
of information or the cultivation of faculties which are mainly receptive, 
discriminating, or critical." According to Prof. Hanus, professor of educa- 
tion in Harvard University, the educational values of different subjects con- 
sist [a] in the scope, kind, strength, and permanence of the incentives to 
activity; and {b) in the kind, degree, and permanence of the/>o?e'^rto think 
and to execute that these subjects may develop. 

/«r^«/zt'i?.y are intellectual, aesthetic, moral, or constructive. Power is 

(a) specific — depending on the particular data with which the subject deals; 

(b) general — depending on the extent to which the same or similar data 
are found in other subjects and the extent to which the method of one 
subject may be applied to other subjects. Power is developed for the sake 
of cultivating desirable habits of thought, expression (in words or in some 
other appropriate way), achievement, and conduct. The conditions under 
which strength and permanence of power are developed are continuity and 
intensiveness in the pursuit of any subject based on interest. The subjects 
of instruction in the modern school course of study deal with the institu- 
tions, ideals, and conduct of men, and with external nature; namely: (1) 
Languages and literature, (2) social studies — history (including the history 
of industry and commerce as well as political history), government, des- 
criptive economics; (3) art (including the history of art, as well as drawing, 
painting, modelling, music); (4) mathematics; (5) physical and biological 
science; (6) manual training. 

The first two subjects (i.e. language and literature and social studies) 
and some forms of art have an ethical content and the incentives growing 
out of the ideals they protray are therefore higher than all others. Hence 
when these subjects develop interest Xhey have a higher educational value 
than all others. Without interest these subjects can have only a moderate 
educational value in spite of their content; for they cannot be economically 
employed to develop desirable habits of thought, achievement, and conduct 
that give promise of permanence. But even without interest they have a 
moderate educational value since all may be influenced to some extent by 
the higher ideals of the race and need ethical and social enlightenment. 
Hence all pupils should be required to give a certain amount of attention 
to them. 

The other subjects (mathematics, natural science and manual training) 

6 



either have no social or ethical content whatever, or involve social and 
ethical incentives only incidentally; and mathematics is especially narrow 
in the range of its possible incentives: Hence without interest, these subjects 
have only feeble educational value of any sort. With interest these subjects 
may be advantageously used for the development of habits of efficiency, i.e. 
of thorough and successful achievement. Such habits render their possessor 
useful and usually happy; and hence the subjects which develop these 
habits posess an educational value dependent on the kind and degree of 
usefulness and happiness which they develop. But the theoretical educa- 
tional values of different subjects as thus determined are greatly modified 
by certain factors inherent in the pupil and his environment. One of these 
is the individuality of the pupil. This should be considered of more and 
more importance as the pupil advances in age and maturity. For each 
pupil will naturally develop certain tastes and capacities which will tend 
more and more to dominate his mental life and thus to furnish the perma- 
nent incentives which should guide him in the choice of his life's occupation 
and on which his highest usefulness and happiness will depend. It is one 
of the notable things in the educational progress of our times that there is 
a growing appreciation of the importance of determining and developing 
the individuality of the pupil in his school life. And it is one of the great 
advantages of the wide range of studies and the elective system in school 
and college that they open the way to the just consideration of this indivu- 
ality. The growing complexity of civilization with its myriad forms of in- 
dustry may contribute to the development of strength, beauty and variety 
in human lives and will do so when we have learned to measure human 
careers by broader and more comprehensive standards than those which are 
set by the traditions of a hoary but narrow past. At any rate it is true that 
as the pupil's individuality emerges the relative educational values of differ- 
ent subjects correspond for each pupil more and more to the relative degrees 
interest of they develop. School courses, especially above the elementary 
school, i. e. in the high school aud college, should especially promote the 
development of each pupil's dominant interests and powers; and further 
should seek to render these interests and powers subservient to life's serious 
purposes, and also to the possibility of participation in the refined pleasures 
of life. Theserious purposes of life are (1) self-support, orsome worthy form 
of service; (2) intelligent active participation in human affairs. The refined 
pleasures of life are found in the abiUty to participate with intelligence and 
appreciation in the intellectual and aesthetic interests of culi\ated men. 

The college course, which we are now especially considering, should 
then allow the student the largest liberty in the choice of studies consistent 
with making him a man of culture and an intelligent and active citizen, 
while at the same time preparing him for the successful practice of 
that vocation for which his tastes and capacities best fit him. Doubtless 
the relative amount of attention which the pupil should give to studies 
directly relating to his chosen vocation will depend to a considerable 
extent on the length of his course, i. e. whether he expects to stop his 
school studies at the end of his college course, as is now ordinarily done, or 
to continue them in university or professional school. 

It is becoming clearer as we study the educational problems of our times 
that the social, aesthetic and vocational studies are, or may be, interrelated in 



such ways that we do well to unite them in courses of study from whatever 
standpoint the pupil approaches. If the student's dominant interest is 
along industrial lines we may make this the central feature of the course and 
at the same time lead him to take interest in other studies because of their 
relations to his chosen vocation. 

In these statements of general principles we have been following Prof. 
Hanus as an authority and will now quote from his work on "■Educational 
Aims and Educational Values.'' 

"For example: The future artisan will be interested in the history of his 
craft; thence easily in the history of industry; thence in its effect on the 
progress of civilization; thence in the political as well as industrial hist or}' 
of his race; that is to say, in the evolution of modern society, with its con- 
temporarj- industrial, economical, aud political problems. History, econ- 
omics, aud government thus become interesting, because they ma}' be 
shown to have obvious relation to his dominant interest. Through history, 
the pupil may become interested in other peoples, with their literature and 
languages, and thus foreign languages may be and should be brought 
within the range of his interests. The obvious dependence of the thorough 
comprehension and pursuit of any irade on mathematics and natural sci- 
ence, leads to these sciences. 

"Again, the future merchant or manufacturer, whose business interests 
outweigh all other incentives to activity, should easily be led to take an in- 
terest in the business relations of his own city, town, or State with other 
cities, towns, and States, and thence, by an easy transition, to the commer- 
cial relations of his own country with foreign countries, and to the leading 
interests of foreign nations. Before long the dependence of commercial 
and industrial activity on the form and structure, the physical features of 
the earth's surface, the raw materials of commerce and manufactures, which 
his commercial interest finds worthy of consideration, may be used to lead 
the pupil to natural science. Machinery for manufacture and for transpor- 
tation are incidentally interesting at first, because they constitute a part of 
the vast commercial activity to which the future merchant feels himself 
irresistably drawn. Ere long, however, he finds that a comprehension of 
them depends on a satisfactory knowledge of mathematics and physical 
science. Everywhere money and credit are used to carry on commercial 
enterprises. Banks and banking appear as important phases of commercial 
activity; so also are the relations of labor and capital, and contemporary 
schemes of cooperation. The government which furnishes the necessary 
guarantee of peace, and protection of property for the uninterrupted pursuit 
of all these commercial and industrial activities, is of interest because, once 
more, it is necessarily associated with his dominant commercial interest; 
and so the youth is led to study economics aud civil government. More- 
over, the history of commerce and industry lead easily and naturally to the 
history of civilization. 

"Commercial relations with other nations make clear the value of foreign 
HI jilern languages, and these, when once pursued, for whatever cause, may 
come to possess an interest of their own. A command of the mother-tongue 
as the means of all communication for business purposes, may be utilized 
to extfUii the knowledge of its literary resources, aud thus bring to bear on 
thj future merchant its far-reaching influences on aims, character, and 

8 



tastes. SiTiilarly the future artist, with his docuinaut aesthetic interest, 
may be led to take an interest in science, in mathematics, in history, atid 
in language, because he finds in each of these subjects important assistance 
toward the civilization of what he has most at heart. 

"Thus, by judiciously grouping the various subjects about a youth's 
vocational interests, he may be led, naturally and with the least resistance, 
to substantial achievement in all the fields of study open to him. He may 
be led to general culture, because these fields of study are shown to minis- 
ter primarily to his vocational interests; because they make clearer the part 
he desires to play in the world, and strengthen his growing ability to sus- 
tain his part well, to do his chosen work well, and to find his way with in- 
creasing certainty through the complex affairs of modern, social and polit- 
ical life. But also, before long, we may hope, in most cases, because they 
afford that satisfaction which every human ^being feels in the enlarge- 
ment of his mental horizon — because they bring within reach the disinter- 
ested pleasures of science, history, literature, and art, and enable him to 

pass through the world alive to its beauties, its marvelous system, and its 
unsolved mysteries." 

I have dwelt on these general considerations regarding educational 
values because I believe it is very important that we should consider instruc- 
tion in agricultural science and practice in the light of an educational 
problem differing in no essential particular from the problem involved in 
education in mechanic arts, engineering, natural science, or medicine. 
And just as any course in those subjects should be constructed with refer- 
ence to the general needs of pupils for instruction in languages, literature, 
social studies, art and mathematics so the course in agriculture should be 
constructed. Emphasis must be laid upon this because the courses given 
at agricultural schools and colleges are often thought of as purely industrial 
in their scope and aim — "bread and butter" courses pure and simple. 
Arguments for a "practical" education are often heard which if taken 
literally would seem to imply that money-getting is the highest aim for a 
man to pursue and that therefore, all studies which do not directly prepare 
the pupil for the practice of an industry are to be tabooed. In this case of 
agriculture, in particular, it is often urged that pupils pursuing this study 
should be separated from those pursuing the classics, law or medicine or 
other culture studies lest the mind of the student of agriculture should be 
diverted from practical ends or he should be overcome by the contempt of 
his fellow students. Against this low, and to my mind, false view of agri- 
cultural education I most earnestly protest. And in opposition to it I lay 
down the thesis that instruction in agriculture properly arranged and given 
may be made to have a high educational value, that agriculture as a science 
has its vocational, scientific and social sides, and that in a properly con- 
structed college course agriculture may be so joined with other studies i. e. 
literary, social, aesthetic, mathematical and scientific, studies that the grad- 
uate from an agricultural course may have a breadth and finish of culture 
comparable with that of the graduates from any other course. 

Coming now directly to the discussion of agricultural courses I have 
decided to present as a concrete example of a four-year college course that 
recommended by the Committees on Entrance Requirements and Methods 
Teaching of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experi- 
ment Stations. This includes the following subjects and number of hours. 



AGRICULTURAIv COURSE FOR BACHELOR'S DEGREE 



CULTURE 
STUDIES 



HOURS 

Language and Literature — -English 200 

Modern Languages 340 

Social Studies — General History 80 

Political Economy fiO 

Constitutional Law 50 

Ethics 40 

Psychology 60 

Art — Drawing ... (iO 

Mathematics — Algebra 75 

Geometry 40 

Trigonometry . 40 



1045 
34 p.ct. 



Pure 
Science 



/ Physics 150 

I Chemeslry 150 

I Botany IhO 

y.oology 120 

Physiology 1 80 

\Geology 120 

' Meteorology ... 60 



960 



p.ct. 



Vocational 
Studies 



/ .Agriculture 486 

I Horficuhure and Forestry 180 

) Veterinary vScience 1 80 

Agricultural Chemistry 1^0 

1026 

34 p.ct. 



10 



It appears then that the agricultural college course reconimende'l by 
these committees is two-thirds culture and scientific studies and ore-third 
agricultuial science and its applications to the art of agriculture. We need 
not, therefore, discuss the educational values of two-thirds of this course 
for these are well established. It is the remaining one-third about which 
some may be in doubt. It will perhaps help us to determine more accur- 
ately the educational values of this agricultural portion if we divide it into 
two sections. A large part of it consists of the study of the different 
branches of the science of agriculture. Essentially these have educational 
values as scientific studies, varying according to their nature and scope. 
In their entirety they cover quite a wide range, since they include materials 
drawn from physics, chemistry, various biological sciences, engineering 
and economics. Leaving out for the present the manual operations which 
we desire to consider separately as the second section of the agricultural 
division of the college course, agricultural science embraces all the other 
lines of instruction laid down by Prof. Hanus, except language and literature 
that is, it includes (1 ) physical and biological science, mathematics, art and 
social study. Properly taught, the student of agricultural science will "see 
straight and clear; compare and infer; make an accurate record; remember; 
express his thought with precision; and hold fast on lofty ideals " From 
the complex nature of the agricultural sciences they should have high ed- 
ucational values along these different lines. The objects, facts and 
phenomena brought before the student of agricultural science are of such a 
kind as to test his capacity to "see straight and clear" in a very high degree. 
Whatever previous training he has had in this line will doubtless aid him 
in this new and higher field of science but however good his previims 
training he will find very much to train and develop his perceptive powers 
in observing the complex things involved in agricultural science. The 
soil, cultivated plants, domestic animals — are not simple and elementary 
things, easy to be apprehended and coniprthended. If we are to know 
them in any accurate sense we must see straight and clear and long. These 
agricultural subjects also furnish innumerable opportunities for compari- 
sons, most of which will be far from simple and the problems of correct 
inferences in this line of study are as difficult as they are multitudinous. 
The classification of soils and the determination of their relative fertility 
and adaptation to different crops; the judging of livestock on the broad 
basis of their fitness for particular uses. What opportunities in such studies 
"to compare and infer." Considered merely as "mental gymnastics" a class 
in stock judging may have as much exercise as a class puzzling over the 
m\steries of the Latin or Greek .subjunctive mood. That is, if our agricul- 
tural students are taught and not lectured. No one would dispute that the 
agricultural subjects give ample opportunity for exercise in "making an 
accurate record" of what is learned. Memory certainly need not lack for 
exercise amid the innumerable multitude of items included in these agri- 
cultural subjects. It is undoubtedly a pity that memory training is too 
much neglected in our modern educational schemes, but this is not for lack 
of materials on which to work; it is oftener alack of proper selection of 
tilings to be remembered or the misguided effort to remember too many 
unimportant items. And if ever there were subjects in which it was de- 
sirable to express our thoughts with precision it is these agricultural sub- 

11 



jects. If only agricultural writers and teachers and students would learn 
to do that so that we might distinguish between their actual knowledge and 
their theories it woxild be a great gain for the cause of truth and science. 
And the expression of the thought may come through language or mathe- 
matics or the graphic arts. 

Before considering whether the study of agriciiltural subjects may con- 
tribute to aid the student "to hold fast on lofty ideals" let us briefly con- 
sider the educational advantage which comes from the addition of manual 
operations to the scientific study of agriculture. The educational authori- 
ties to whom I have referred la}' much emphasis on the principle that 
^^ejfedive pozver in action is the true end of education." And they do not 
limit action to mental processes only but recognize that effective power of 
mind may just as well be expressed through bodily action. It has long 
been agreed that thought in its highest forms wvAy be expressed through 
the hand of the sculptor, artist or architect but it is only of late that our 
schoolmen have come to see that within appropriate limits fine and accurate 
thinking may be expressed just as truly through the hand that molds the 
clay or works the wood or iron or performs the operations of the farm. 
The straight furrow, the rapid and efficient handling of farm machinery, 
the nice manipulation of buiter-making have their educational values for 
the accuracy of thought and efficiencj' of mental action they represent but 
they also have additional and peculiar educational value because of the 
manual training they involve. This is an item we should not lose sight of in 
constructing a college course in agriculture. It may be true that students will 
not come to college to learn the operations of the farm but it is also true 
that they will not be thoroughly cultured agricultural graduates if during 
their college course they have not engaged in farm operations. No portion 
of the agricultural course deserves more pains-taking attention from teachers 
than that which relates lo the manual exercises or practicums which should 
accoTupany the teaching of the science of agriculture. It is narrowing the 
range of agricultural education and reducing, rather than raising, the edu- 
cational values of agricultural courses to leave out manual training in ag- 
riculture. 

Finally, may courses in agriculture be so constructed as to have an 
educational value becau.se they inculcate "those supreme ideals through 
which the human race is uplifted and ennobled, the ideals of beauty, honor, 
duty and love".? In the answer to this question is involved the great 
problem of the right conception of a civilization based on a righteous and 
rational industrial system. As long as industrial pursuits are regarded as a 
curse or drudgery and the ennobling pursuits are philosophy and statecraft 
and war there is naturally little chance that industrial pursuits will be con- 
ducted on an}- higher basis than that of a gross materialism i. e. for the 
money there is in them. For ages the ideal state as portrayed in Plato's 
Republic has actually in one form or another been the ideal which has 
moulded the thought and activity of men. To reach a condition in which man- 
ual or other severe labor is unnecessary and to have leisure for philosophy, 
politics, war, and pleasure as the real business of life has been the aim of 
the individual man. To set over against the large mass of the workers a small 
privileged cla^s to enjoy the fruits of their labor has been the actual goal of 
society's aim, even when this has not been acknowledged. But in these 

12 



last days we are coming to see that this is a false aim. The belief is growing 
that civilization should seek the good of the greatest number, that through 
and in the various industries by which nature is controlled and fashioned to 
man's uses the workers may find not only a livelihood but also the means and 
opportunity for wide mental activity and refined pleasure; for beauty, honor, 
duty and love. These are the new revelations to our age. And the problem 
before us is to establish agriculture, as well as our other industries, on this 
new basis. The author of a remarkable book, entitled Western Ci\ili- 
zation, has endeavored to show that our civilization differs from that of the 
pagan nations in that the center of dominant interest has shifted from the 
past or the present where it formerly was to the future where it will remain. 
And it seems true as regards the educational world that something like this 
is transpiring. Hitherto the chief aim of education has been to learn and 
remember and apply what the past or the present has taught us. It is true 
that with the revival of learning after the Middle Ages and with the open- 
ing up of the reservoirs of classical literature there came into Western 
Europe a flood of ideas new to Western civilization. These were nec- 
essary to bring the Western peoples into the world current of civilization 
but they were after all old ideas and they turned the thoughts of men back 
to the past. In considering the classical literatures we should always re- 
member that for a long time men in Europe and America studied them 
primarily for the ideas which they contained. It was new knowledge they 
sought in the pages of Greek and Roman authors, not mental gymnastics or lit- 
erary style. This movement had hardly spent its force when the new natural 
sciences appeared and began their claims for incorporation in the educa- 
tional system. Their day is now and they have greatly broadened the scope 
and range of our educational activities. Their chief aim is to define the 
constitution of things as they exist and show the method of their develop- 
ment. They lack the ethical element except as this is involved in the love 
and pursuit of truth. This has since been supplied by their application to 
the needs of man. Industrial education based on these sciences has its 
dominant interest in the bettering of human environment and in the future 
enlargement and refinement of human activities. The teaching of agricul- 
ture, or of any industrial art, under these conditions does not reach its 
highest level unless it embraces this ethical element. We should teach 
men in our agricultural colleges to be intelligent farmers not simply that 
they may thus make a. better living but rather that they may be leaders in 
making agriculture a live, progressive art, which in the future shall provide 
a more stable and satisfactory basis for thrifty, intelligent, refined and 
happy rural communities, as well as a stronger guarantee for the manufact- 
ures, commerce, art, literature and science of a higher civilization in 
which industrial and civil peace and not war shall be the established order. 
It is because industrial education, broadly conceived anrl planned, adds to 
its other merits this high ethical content of a dominant future interest that 
I claim for it a high educational value, and predict for it an increasing 
space in the educational scheme of the future. 

In thus claiming an ethical content for properly constructed agricul- 
tural courses I do not of course make this in any comprehensive and ex- 
clusive sense. Other subjects which should be included in the scheme of a 
college curriculum and are included in the curriculum we are considering, 

13 



are more essentially and broadly ethical studies and should be pursued 
especially for their ethical content. 

There can, I think, be no doubt that taken in their entire range agri- 
cultural subjects furnish an abundance of materials from which to construct 
a sound and strong educational system. But good materials are not enough 
to guarantee a substantial and convenient building. There must be a good 
architect and well-trained builders. No courses of study can have a high 
educational valne unless they are planned and taught in accordance with 
sound pedagogical principles. This is something college teachers are espec- 
ially prone to forget. They are so iuterested in the subject matter of their 
.s])ecialties that the}' are very apt to make the fatal mistake of supposing 
that all tliL-v have to do is to present this subject matter as rapidly as pos- 
sib e and let their students absorb it. The method or even the order of 
presentation, is practically deemed of little account. It is a pouring out of 
information from beginning to end. I fear that the lecture system so com- 
mon in our colleges has much to answer for in this regard. Really good 
teachers are much rarer than they ought to be in our colleges. I sometimes 
think that research with all its advantages has tended to lower the quality 
of teaching, especiall}- in the lower college classes, by laj-ing a wrong 
eni')hasis on methods of work for which the more immature student is not 
prepared It is after all one thing to investigate and a different thing to 
teach well. 

The relative educational value of agricultural courses will depend 
largely on the methods of teaching. Let us therefore briefly consider some 
of the pedag 'gical principles on the application of which the educational 
value of these courses will depend. 

1. The foundation of educational success in agricultural courses must be 
laid in the interest of the student. On this such authorities as Prof. 
H mus, and others who follow the leadership of Herbart, very strongly 
insist. In this I believe they are right, provided they do not make 
too nuich of it. Without doubt the teacher should secure the interest 
of the pupil at the outset and hold it to the end of the course in agri- 
culture and in other subjects; but this is not all he should do. There 
may be much interest without much instruction. The stump speaker 
often excites his hearers to the highest pitch of interest without giving 
them any useful information. I have seen pupils in a school room kept 
in an excited state of mind all day without making any material protr- 
ress in learning. 

2. There should be careful selection and systematic arrangement of topics 
to be taught in a given course. Obviously only a relatively small number 
of the vast array of items included in Agrcultural Science can be profit- 
ably brought before a class in the limited time assigned to agriculture in 
even a four-year college course. The choice of topics for instruction is 
therefore an important matter, and more so as the science increases in 
range and bulk. In making this choice the needs and interest of the 
student, rather than the fancy and preference of the teacher, should 
control. Logic is an old-fashioued and somewhat discredited study 
n')w.idays. Nevertheless it were well for teachers of agriculture to fol- 
low its principles in the arrangement of the topics they select to teach. 
The inter relations of the topics should be carefully considered and as 

1-1 



far as practicable the student should be put in possession of asystem of 
truth regarding agriculture as the result of his college training in this 
subject. To the disjointed, helter-skelter teaching of many college 
instructors must be charged the frequent failure of students to grasp 
and hold in a firm and permanent way what they attempt to learn in 
college courses. 

The methods of teaching agricultural courses should be such as to af- 
ford the opportunity and impose the necessity on the student of exert- 
ing himself strenuously to gain the mastery of these subjects. Hence 
the advantage of the so-called laboratory methods as contrasted with 
lecturing. Much educational value is added to courses through which 
the student learns how to study and is compelled to perform mental 
labor, aside from the acquisition of any definite amount of knowledge. 
This was one of the rightful claims to high pedagogic value put forth in 
behalf of the old classical courses. In connection with them even the 
laziest student had to perform a considerable amount of mental effort to 
pass. Though he rode a "pony" all through tae course instead of toil- 
ing on foot, he got much exercise of mind. There is plenty of oppor- 
tunity for making agricuHural courses of high pedagogic value in this 
regard but they will not be such if the agricultural instructor is content 
wiih lecturing or simply pointing out things to the student with the aid 
ui lantern slides or objects. He must be a teacher \\\ some real way. 
To give a high educational value to agricultural courses attention must 
be paid to the time element in education. I do not now refer to the 
duration of agricultural courses but to the relative amount of mental 
activity compressed into a given time through skilful teaching. One 
great pedagogical advantage which the languages will always have as 
subjects of instruction is that they furnish withm a very limited area a 
large amount of varied material f.jr purposes of instruction thus enab- 
ling the skilful teacher to put the student through a relatively large 
number of mental exercises in a comparatively brief time. When 
language is taught on the basis of the science of philology the words 
and sentences are the objects; their inflections and syntax relations 
furnish the means of scientific classification, comi)arison, induction and 
deduction. And within a single page there are so many elements of 
philological science that the pupil has abundant opportunity for con- 
stantly learning new facts and principles and reviewing old ones. In a 
single recitation period he may be kept continuously in a high state of 
mental activity and have very varied mental exercises. In teaching the 
sciences on the other hand by the laboratory method the instructor 
must be constantly on the alert to prevent the time from slipping away 
with only an inconsiderable amount and variety of mental effort on the 
student's part. Hence the necessity of much attention to the devising 
of laboratory methods of instruction which will permit rapid and varied 
work, the previous preparation of materials so that there may be no de- 
lays in the class room, and the holding of the student to strenuous effort 
from first to last. All pupils recognize a vast difference between terch- 
ers in this regard and lazy pupils have a keen instinct for detecting 
" soft " courses. 
The educational value of courses in agriculture will also depend on the 

15 






extent to which they are made the means for developing originality and 
executive capacity in the students. It is not enough that through such 
courses the student shall gain much exact and useful knowledge or 
correct methods of activity. He should acquire ability to seek and find 
new truth, and to guide and control the activities of other men in prac- 
tical and scientific lines. The college graduate is not the man he 
ought to be unless he is capable of adding to the sum of human know- 
ledge and becoming a leader in human progress. The quality of the 
future work of our experiment stations and departments of agriculture 
will depend on the original power developed in the graduates from our 
agricultural courses. The progress of the practical agricultiire of this 
country in competition with the world will depend very largely on the 
quality of the leadership of the graduates from these agricultural 
courses; and the organization of the agricultural industries on right 
lines, as well as the betterment of the social conditions of agricultural 
communities, should naturally depend very much on the leadership of 
the agricultural colleges and their graduates. The signs all point to the 
wider and stronger influence of educated men in the large affairs of 
industry and public business, including the narrower range of public 
business which we ordinarly call the government. In these broad lines 
thsre will be abundant opportunities for agricultural graduates to make 
for themselves honorable and useful careers. Their success in this 
direction will depend largely on the quality of the teaching they re- 
ceive in agricultural courses. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



002 782 342 7 



